Posted on 12/12/2007 11:36:39 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
“Saying American foreign policy needs a change in tone and attitude, or an opening up and a reaching out, is as obvious as saying O. J. Simpson might be having a bad month. This Administration’s bunker mentality has been counter-productive both at home and abroad. They have done as poor a job of communicating and consulting with other countries as they have with the American people.
“A more successful foreign policy begins at home with better communication to the American people about Islamic terror. Six years after 9/11, it is still difficult for us, with our religious tolerance, our separation of church and state, to grasp how these people think. After we attend different churches on Sunday, or no church, Americans share meals or movies -- we don’t slaughter each other. We have thrived on our diversity – religious, ethnic, racial -- to become the world’s only superpower. We don’t merely tolerate diversity, we embrace and celebrate it. To Islamic extremists, the concept of a melting pot is as alien as the concept of a theocracy is to us. It takes an enormous leap of imagination to understand what these people are about, that they really do want to kill every last one of us and destroy civilization as we know it.
“The Administration has never done an adequate job explaining the theology and ideology behind Islamic terror, never done an adequate job of convincing us of their ruthless fanaticism. The first rule of war is “Know your enemy,” and most Americans don’t. To grasp the magnitude of the threat, we first have to understand what makes Islamic terrorists – and their suicide bombs – tick, and the Administration has not explained it well. Very few Americans are familiar with the writings of Sayyid Qutb, the Egyptian radical executed in 1966, and the Muslim Brotherhood, whose call to active jihad, influenced bin Laden and the rise of Al Qaeda. Qutb is to bin Laden as Karl Marx is to Lenin. Qutb raged against the decadence and sin he saw around him and sought to restore what he considered the “pure” Islam of the seventh century. Besides opposing non-Muslims, besides opposing Shiites, he was a Sunni who opposed Sunni governments because he believed they required their citizens to worship them like “gods,” and so were guilty of a polytheism forbidden by Islam. To him, the only answer was a return to a theocratic caliphate without national borders, and he saw nothing decadent or sinful in murder to achieve that end. Americans, who go to extreme lengths to save lives, can’t comprehend human beings who delight in taking lives, it just doesn’t compute. In our culture, the death of a child is about the worst trial a person can endure, while parents of suicide bombers feel joy, not grief. We believe that every individual has intrinsic worth and value. This culture of life is a cornerstone of our society, illuminated by the conflict with the Islamic jihadists and their culture of death.
“It is also difficult for us, with our culture of assimilation, to understand that life for European Muslims is different from life for American Muslims. Muslims in Britain or the Netherlands or Germany are second-class citizens because those countries have more homogenous populations that don’t readily integrate outsiders. Instead of melting pots, Europe has separate pots boiling over with alienation and despair. In some countries, like France, it is more a lack of economic integration, while in others, like Britain, it is more a lack of cultural integration, but whatever the reason, Europe is a much more fertile breeding ground for terror than the United States. Unintentionally, some of our closest allies are producing some of our clearest threats. Because of our special relationship with Britain and all our similarities with them, most Americans don’t realize that it is very different to be a Muslim citizen of Britain than a Muslim citizen of the United States, so we have trouble accepting that doctors in Britain become terrorists. We have to understand that while educated Muslims in Europe may not be materially deprived, many of them feel socially and emotionally deprived by a lack of acceptance. Earlier this month we saw the arrest of German citizens plotting a terror attack against American targets there. Also this month we saw Danish citizens arrested for plotting an imminent bombing. Both plots had links to Al Qaeda.
“Besides the threat of small groups of educated people launching isolated attacks, we face the danger of mass movements of the dispossessed and discontented rising up in the Islamic world and overthrowing their governments, movements like those that led to the current government in Iran when the Shah was overthrown and to the Palestinians’ election of Hamas and then their takeover of Gaza. To create havoc in the world, you need educated people to provide the intellectual underpinnings and poor, desperate people to provide the manpower. Before the Russian Revolution, the rural peasants who formed the overwhelming bulk of the population weren’t sitting around reading Karl Marx, they were illiterate. It took a small number of intellectuals to provide the theory and then rally oppressed peasants behind them. The ruling class is the spark, but the underclass is the fuel. A strong middle class is the firewall.
“Our biggest challenge in the Arab and Muslim worlds is the lack of a viable moderate alternative. On the one hand, we have existing repressive governments that stay in power by force and suppression of basic human rights -- many of which we support, either with our oil money, like the Saudis, or with our foreign aid, like the Egyptians, who are our second largest recipient. On the other hand, we have radical Islamists, who are willing to fight dictators with terror tactics that moderates are too humane to use. This is how Iran went from the brutal Shah to the brutal Ayatollahs, despite all the Iranians who wanted a moderate government then and who want one now.
“We can’t ‘export’ democracy as if it was Coca Cola or KFC, but we can nurture native moderate forces in all these countries where Al Qaeda seeks to replace modern evil with medieval evil. This moderation may not look like or function exactly like our system, it may be more of a benevolent oligarchy, it may be more tribal than individualistic, but both for us and for the people of those countries, it will be better than either the dictatorships they have now or the theocracy they would have under the radical Islamists.
“We see this potential in the way Sunni tribal leaders in Iraq, who had been working with Al Qaeda, have now turned against them and are working with us. They couldn’t stand living under Al Qaeda’s fundamentalism and brutality. The people of Afghanistan turned against the Taliban for the same reason. To know these extremists is not to love them.
“My goal in the Muslim world is to correctly calibrate a course between maintaining stability and promoting democracy. It is self-defeating to try to accomplish too much too soon, you just have elections where extremists win, but it’s equally self-defeating to do nothing. First, we have to destroy the terrorists who already exist, then we have to attack the underlying conditions that breed terror, by helping to improve health and basic quality of life, create schools that offer an alternative to the extremist madrassas that turn impressionable children into killers, create jobs and opportunity and hope, encourage a free press, fair courts, and other institutions that promote democracy. We have to help other governments mount an active counter-insurgency wherever the terrorists are to be found, but we also have to help them improve their infrastructure to make future terrorists unwelcome. Our strategic interests as the world’s most powerful country coincide with our moral obligations as the world’s richest country. If we don’t do the right thing to make life better in the Islamic world, the terrorists will step in and do the wrong thing. (Continued)
Is this a Huckabee Speech, or a DNC press release?
Sometimes Huckabee makes Ron Paul look almost sane.
Apparently, Huckabee has read “The Looming Tower”.
1. "This Administration’s bunker mentality...."
2. "They have done as poor a job of communicating and consulting with other countries as they have with the American people...."
3. "....our separation of church and state...."
4. "We have thrived on our diversity...."
5. "We don’t merely tolerate diversity, we embrace and celebrate it."
6. “The Administration has never done an adequate job explaining...."
This guy Huckabee is tough to take.
This guy reads too much of the MSM and believes way too much of what they say. It leads to him constantly sounding like a Dim.
But that is a small issue. How could ANYONE believe this guy would not be completely turned by the DC media and elites. They would push him into governing almost compleely as a Dim from Supreme Court appointees to taxes.
Ping!
As a supporter of Governor Huckabee, I wouldn’t mind seeing criticisms of the actual substance of the speech. Does anyone here have any?
Well, the part on Pakistan could have been written by Obama...
What exactly makes you support Huckabee? Which policies?
Ass-clown comment that we expect from a liberal Democrat, not a Republican.
Go away Mike, you're getting really annoying.
Mitt Romney read the Looming Tower and spoke on right-wing talk radio about it.
OTOH, Huckabee's been reading dKos.
” Does anyone here have any? “
yes, he’s a phony...
Pavlov dog’s are not trained to read, they are trained to bark when they hear the word “Huckabee”.
I thought he made some excellent points, especially this paragraph.
“The Administration has never done an adequate job explaining the theology and ideology behind Islamic terror, never done an adequate job of convincing us of their ruthless fanaticism. The first rule of war is “Know your enemy,” and most Americans don’t. To grasp the magnitude of the threat, we first have to understand what makes Islamic terrorists – and their suicide bombs – tick, and the Administration has not explained it well. Very few Americans are familiar with the writings of Sayyid Qutb, the Egyptian radical executed in 1966, and the Muslim Brotherhood, whose call to active jihad, influenced bin Laden and the rise of Al Qaeda. Qutb is to bin Laden as Karl Marx is to Lenin. Qutb raged against the decadence and sin he saw around him and sought to restore what he considered the “pure” Islam of the seventh century. Besides opposing non-Muslims, besides opposing Shiites, he was a Sunni who opposed Sunni governments because he believed they required their citizens to worship them like “gods,” and so were guilty of a polytheism forbidden by Islam. To him, the only answer was a return to a theocratic caliphate without national borders, and he saw nothing decadent or sinful in murder to achieve that end. Americans, who go to extreme lengths to save lives, can’t comprehend human beings who delight in taking lives, it just doesn’t compute. In our culture, the death of a child is about the worst trial a person can endure, while parents of suicide bombers feel joy, not grief. We believe that every individual has intrinsic worth and value. This culture of life is a cornerstone of our society, illuminated by the conflict with the Islamic jihadists and their culture of death.
Mike’s speech took a lot of words to say, “I will follow President Bush’s lead and continue his policies, except I will consult with other countries.”
It’s so bad it’s not even a foreign policy speech.
It’s a trite mix of mumbo jumbo and warmed over conventional wisdom and political correctness. I can’t even tell the difference between this and a trite Obama speech, frankly. .. or Jimmy Carter.
And his speech is chock full of this nonsense:
“We have to understand that while educated Muslims in Europe may not be materially deprived, many of them feel socially and emotionally deprived by a lack of acceptance.”
Jimmy Carteresque BS. It’s their own ideology not the level of acceptance that drives their isolation. Typical Liberal pap.
““My goal in the Muslim world is to correctly calibrate a course between maintaining stability and promoting democracy.”
So the blood we shed pursuing Bush’s bold strategy to reformulate how we approach the MidEast will be squandered by a vacillating policy... Egads. And nothing at all serious about how to build up Iraq, win there, and move on to win the GWOT.
Awful. Awful Awful. How is it that every day I find yet more depressingly awful things about the awful Mike Huckabee.
I had already two days ago decided he was worse than Ron Paul. ... Now, he is decisively and definitely worse.
He may even be worse (gasp) than Hillary on foreign policy. She apparently will manage to have more balls than he will... Damn shame the “So Con” slot is being wasted on such a worthless contender!!!
Man, who writes this cr*p?
It DOES have the possibility of impacting the Korean peninsula and Chia Head from early 2009.
What is the word again for "naive" in Korean?
I seem to remember it as: 치졸한
We need to assure Pakistan that we will be with them for the long haul.On the other hand:
“We have no desire whatsoever to ‘invade’ Pakistan, fight its forces, or harm its citizens. But we have an urgent need to pursue non-Pakistani terrorists who have declared war on us into this no man’s land. I greatly prefer to do it with Pakistan’s blessing and cooperation, but, one way or another, it has to get done. If we have to step onto their soil briefly to protect our own, so be it. As a child sometimes goes into a neighbor’s yard to collect a baseball hit over the fence, so we may be forced to go over the fence.It's going to be hard to convince the Pakistanis of the first given the second. They aren't going to accept his baseball analogy. They're going to claim we were playing cricket in their yard and say that's not cricket! If only they didn't have nukes we could lean hard on them, but they do have nukes. The problem this is causing us there is the proof that we should be willing to do dang near anything to avoid another case of the same problem in Iran, without the saving grace of a marginally net pro-western military.
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